


we're helpless

by tardisthetrain



Series: through shattered bones and broken hearts [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Child Abuse, Morse Code, pain sharing soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-12-31 17:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardisthetrain/pseuds/tardisthetrain
Summary: in a universe where you feel the pain your soulmate feels, jemma simmons grows up very worried for the boy she's destined to share her future with.soulmate au.





	we're helpless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [101places](https://archiveofourown.org/users/101places/gifts).

> title comes from 'someone to stay' by vancouver sleep clinic

They start feeling what the other feels when they’re five. She’s sitting at the breakfast table, swinging her legs, mid-conversation when she feels it, a _burn_ against her shoulder so sudden that she _yelps_. She feels tears sting at the corners of her eyes, and just as sudden as the burn was, it’s gone, just a memory.

Her mum inspects her shoulder carefully. There’s no mark, no indication, but they all _know_. She’s five years old when her mum tells her everything about soulmates, how people can feel what their soulmate feels, can _know_ when they’re hurting or when they’re sad. She asks questions, some of them get answered.

She asks why she felt a _burn_, but she doesn’t get an answer. She spends the rest of the day wondering.

She wonders if her soulmate, whoever they are, can feel her wondering, but her mum says it doesn’t work like that. She tells her that it’s only certain things. she tells her that, from now on, she’ll _know_ when her soulmate is in pain, that it’s supposed to help you know who they are, supposed to help you understand.

For the rest of the day, she knows the phantom of the quick burn, and she’s almost asleep before she feels pain again. It’s sharper this time, against her ribs, and it knocks the wind out of her. For a moment, she can’t remember how to breathe. There’s another _burn_ against her shoulder, just an inch below where it had been before. She presses her face into her pillow and tries not to sob. She bites down on the corner of her blanket and _begs_ for it to stop, just _stop_, please, _stop hurting_.

Another agonizing sixty seconds go by before it feels like she can breathe again, like the air is finally reaching her lungs, her _soulmate’s_ lungs. She settles down more in her bed, gasping and crying silently. She holds her blanket closer to her face, wipes her eyes with the corner, and _hopes_, hopes that whatever just happened doesn’t _ever_ happen again. She shuts her eyes tighter, counts sheep, _one, two, three_, and hopes that her soulmate just had a bad day, that things will be better in the morning.

Jemma’s five-years-old when she starts to worry about her soulmate.

At six, when she’s on the school playground and scrapes her knee against the blacktop, she’s so focused on the ache and the sting that at first, she doesn’t notice her hand. There’s a pressure against her palm, not a _hurt_, but just… just _pressure_ on her fingers, like someone _holding_ onto them, squeezing them _tight_. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her palm, decides to experiment, to give it a try. With her left hand, she grabs onto her right, gives a quick _squeeze_ to her three middle fingers. For a moment, it aches, just enough pressure to linger for a second.

Pressure builds up again in her left hand. Another squeeze. She can’t help it but _laugh_, and she does it _over_ and _over_, every time that she feels the quick _burst_ against her left hand, she squeezes against her right. They go back and forth for the rest of the day, and she can’t help but wonder if her soulmate is _smiling_ too, whoever they are.

A day later, when she’s in the middle of brushing her teeth, when she feels a sudden _spark_ in the back of her head, she grabs her own hand on _instinct_, holds it tight until she gets a squeeze back. The sparks die down into a dull throb, she lets go of her hand. Her brother knocks on the door and asks her what’s taking so long. She spits out the toothpaste and says nothing, leaves the bathroom with tears in her eyes and an ache in her head.

She’s seven (_ and a half_, thank you very much ) when she takes a _glance_ into one of the spy books her brother’s reading in the den. There’s a little piece of paper with the Morse code alphabet written on it. When he’s not looking, she snatches up the paper and hurries to her room, shuts the door behind her, and tries another experiment.

For almost a year and a half now, Jemma and her soulmate have made their own language, _more or less_. Whoever they are, they feel more _pain_ that she would’ve thought possible. Every day, it’s something new, a new _ache_ or a new _burn_. She’s always been _careful_, always _tiptoed_ around danger.

When she feels a new _ache_, she grabs her own hand and squeezes twice. It means, _I’m here_. ( In the back of her notebook, she has the _translations_ written down. ) In the mornings and before bed, there’s just one little squeeze, to say _hello_, and when things feel really bad, it’s _three squeezes_. One to say, _hello_, two to say, _I’m here_, three to say, _you’ll be okay_.

It’s become their _language_, but maybe there’s _more_ now. She stares at the piece of paper with all the _dashes_ and _dots_, and bites her tongue gently to get her soulmate’s attention. It takes her a _moment_, and she keeps hesitating, before she acts. She presses her thumb against her forearm, just enough to _ache_ for a second, and she _taps_ out,

.... .. ·-·-·- ( _Hi_. )

She does it _again_, and _again_. She _knows_ that her soulmate is thinking, knows from feeling the _pressure_ on the balls of her feet. _Whoever_ they are, they _really_ like to rock back and forth. Another _hour_ goes by, and every so often, she’ll get a _squeeze_ against her hand, like a reassurance, her soulmate telling her, _I’m still here_.

At dinner, she feels the _thrum_ and the _pressure_ against her arm.

.... . .-.. .-.. --- ·-·-·- ( _Hello_. )

She stays up all night, _squinting_ at the piece of translation paper. She taps _name_ onto her arm, and it takes a minute, but she gets a response, gentle touches, gentle _aches_ against her other arm that spells out: .-.. . --- ·-·-·- ( _Leo_. )

Now she knows his _name_. Now, after two and a half years, he finally starts to feel _real_.

She has the Morse code translation paper taped to the inside of her notebook for years. They _know_ each other’s names now. His, _Leo_, hers, _Jemma_. He asks her age, and they’re both _eight_ at the time. The questions go back and forth, and her notebook is just about filled with more dashes and dots, scribbled answers and _prepared_ questions. It’s hard to make complete sentences, so they shorten things, omit needless words. It’s _enough_ for them to _understand_.

.-- .... . .-. . ..-. .-. --- -- ··--·· ( _Where from_? )

She tells him ... .... . ..-. ..-. .. . .-.. -.. ·-·-·- ( _Sheffield_. ) 

And he says .... .- --. .... .. .-.. .-.. ·-·-·- (_ Haghill_. )

By the age of nine, Jemma has just about _memorized_ the Morse code alphabet. They ask questions back and forth, get little bits of _insight_ to the other’s life. They ask _siblings?_ She says she has a brother. He says he’s _only_. She tells him she has a cat, he says _no pets_. They stay up all hours, tell shorthand stories to each other until the _thrums_ stop and they know the other has _fallen asleep_.

He still gets _hurt_ too much. She asks about it, asks _why_, but he makes it _clear_ with his lack of answers that he doesn’t want to _talk_ about it. Sometimes he just tells her _no_, and she’ll leave the conversation at that, ask something different.

She’s half-asleep one night, _ten-years-old_, when she gets a message on her arm.

.. ·----· -- ... -.-. .- .-. . -.. ·-·-·- ( _I’m scared_. )

She’s awake in an instant. She asks _why_, asks _who_. Anything she can know, she _wants_ to know it. Maybe they’re _four hours_ away from each other, at best. Maybe there’s no feasible way to get to him, to hold him, but she’s never wanted to do anything more. She _squeezes_ her own hand three times.

He finally responds, ..-. .- - .... . .-. ·-·-·- (_ Father_. )

Leo doesn’t tell her any more. There aren’t any more _taps_ or _pressures_ against her arm for the rest of the night. Maybe he fell asleep, she figures. Maybe he just had a _nightmare_, she hopes. She squeezes her hand three more times and closes her eyes.

It’s two hours later when the _worst_ finally comes.

She wakes up to such a _violent pain_ in her left arm that she feels like she’s going to be sick. She stumbles out of bed, down into the hall and leans over the toilet. The _pain_ lasts longer than what she’s used to with Leo. She tries to ask him something, tries to get a message across, but the hurt is too much, _too much_, too much. She cradles her arm against her chest, tries to quiet her sobs as she tilts back and forth.

There’s another _burst_ of pain, this one in the back of her head, and _sparks_ dance across her vision, like dynamite behind her eyes. She doesn’t remember dropping to the floor in sobs, doesn’t remember laying down on the tile and begging for it to _stop_, _stop_, _stop_. The pain is still there when she wakes up, the _ache_, her arm _stiff_ against her chest. Her head is still throbbing, sparks still flickering when she leans too much weight on her left arm.

She tries to ask Leo what happened, but he doesn’t answer her, not anymore.

She’s sixteen and in a new school when she gets a new lab partner. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t _think_ about Leo, about where he is or what he’s doing. He’s still _alive_, she knows that much, but he doesn’t talk to her anymore. She can feel when he stubs his toe, he can feel when she holds a mug of tea that’s just a little too hot, but they don’t talk anymore.

He’s sixteen, a loner in a new school, when he gets a new lab partner. His left hand shakes when he takes hers, mumbles, _Call me Fitz_, when she asks him his name. He’s shy, doesn’t like to talk, that much is _immediately_ clear. She asks if that’s a first name or last name, and when he says _last_, she tells him, _Well, then call me Simmons_.

He’s a klutz, that’s one of the first things she notices. He mumbles to himself when he’s looking into the microscope, and he’s _always_ tilting on the soles of his shoes. She doesn’t know much about him. He doesn’t really like to talk.

They’re working in silence when it happens. He shuts his hand in a desk drawer in his frustrated search for his lucky pen. She _yelps_. He _hisses_ in pain. Out of habit, she squeezes her hand three times, and he spins around so quickly that she feels _dizzy_ too.

“Jemma?”

**Author's Note:**

> for rin.


End file.
